


Everywhere to Me

by WhatBecomesOfYou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatBecomesOfYou/pseuds/WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the heat of a meltdown, Niall confesses something important to Harry. Harry reacts to it in the only way he knows how - by singing about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainbowkitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowkitten/gifts).



“Doesn't it seem like Niall has been a little down lately?” Zayn asked, popping a bite of food in his mouth. With a satisfying crunch, he bit down before he continued, “I mean, he's usually so -”

“- Not curled up in the corner of the tour bus?” Liam contributed. “I hadn't put much thought to it, but yeah, you're right.”

“Should one of us talk to him? See what's wrong?” Louis asked. “When one of us is down, it brings down the whole group, and -”

“I'll do it,” Harry said, cutting Louis off at the pass. “And I'll let you mates know if there's anything that you can do.” He walked to the back of the tour bus, passing by the multitudes of items that blocked his way, before he saw Niall curled up in a tiny little ball. “Hey,” he said, dropping his voice as he dropped to his knees. “You alright?”

His only reply was silence, and Niall's eyes flicked up to meet him, just long enough so that Harry knew that he was awake and listening. He could hear the other three chattering in the background, and hoped that they couldn't hear what was being said.

“Look, mate, we're all worried about you,” Harry continued. “You're normally so -” He trailed off, but let the silence fill in the blanks, with the traits that Niall knew about himself. Happy-go-lucky. Bright. Shiny. Just plain _happy_ , in a way that even the rest of them could never quite be, although none of them could be considered down, by any means.

“Leave me alone,” the hollow voice from inside the shell said. “I want to be alone.”

“Is something bothering you?”

“Yes. Now, can you please _leave_ ,” Niall emphasized as he asked the question, the words almost coming across as spoken venom. “I – I just want to be alone,” he said, echoing his previous sentiments.

“Look, I'm not going anywhere until you feel like you can say what's on your mind,” Harry said, rocking back on his toes. He hoped that the concern that he genuinely felt was reflected in his eyes, even though Niall still would not meet his gaze, except only for a second.

“I'm always going to be the adorable Irish boy band pop star, aren't I?” he started to say, before he covered his mouth with his hands.

“Niall -”

“No, don't _Niall_ me. You're not my mum, so you don't have the right. You and the rest of the lot are all alike. You just see me as 'happy-go-lucky Niall, oh-so-kind-and-wonderful, blah-de-blah.' And I'm tired of it.” He curled back into himself, his hands over his face, hiding his face from Harry.

“I can say that I have never thought of you as just that.”

“No one's ever going to take me seriously. Don't you _get_ that? I'm always going to be just the lad from One Direction with the really great smile. No one's ever going to want to date me or have sex with me or any of that.” He sniffled and looked up at Harry. “Especially not the one person I actually want to. You.”

Harry felt his heart drop through the floor of the tour bus at his confession, and he rocked forward on his feet to brush his hand up against Niall. “I – you -” the words came tumbling out of his mouth before he even realized what he was saying. “You want -”

“What I want is to be left alone right now,” Niall said, turning his head away from Harry.

Harry walked back toward the front of the bus, although still staying back away from the rest of the group. Niall fancied him. Out of all the guys in the world that he could fancy, he had chosen him. It was flattering, to say the least, but he would have to find a way to show Niall that he could be taken seriously, by the one person he wanted that the most from. He pursed his lips into a defined pout, and thought for a moment.

If he was Niall, how would he want to be wooed?

The answer came to him in the form of a bolt of lightning across his subconscious. And he knew just how to do it.

Now, the question would come: when could they get a moment alone in order for him to enact his plan?

“Hey, Harry, how's Niall?” Zayn called out, seeing him sitting there by himself. “He better now that you talked to him?”

“I think he wants to be left alone for right now,” Harry said, easing up out of the seat, “but he'll be okay.” A wicked smile glinted at the corners of his mouth as he said it, and the cogs of his plan started turning in his head.

This was going to work out well, he thought.

* * *

They were somewhere in America on tour – all those fifty states kind of blurred together after a while, if Harry was honest. And they were far from home, far from their families, far from the creature comforts that their lives afforded them.

And they couldn't even drink to pass the time in between shows, when their bus rattled down the roads and shook with every blasted pothole they hit along the way. Damn American drinking laws.

Zayn and Liam were curled up on the couch talking in low, indecipherable whispers, and Louis was zoned out looking at something on his phone, and Harry took this as his cue. There weren't too many opportunities for privacy when they were almost always together like this. “Niall?” he whispered, trying to catch his attention. “Hey, Niall.”

“What?” Niall said, looking up from where his gaze had fallen.

He tossed him a tiny little iPod, nothing larger than a stick of gum, with a pair of headphones dangling out the slot. “Catch.”

“Very nice, but I already have an iPod.”

“Not like this one you don't,” Harry said. “Give it a listen, you'll see what I mean.”

“Okay.” Niall sounded a little dubious, but gamely plugged the headphones into his ears and pressed play.

The first track was just Harry's voice speaking. “Hey, Niall, I know you said how you were afraid that no one was ever going to take you seriously. This mix iPod will show you just how seriously I take you, and I hope that you see yourself differently after I'm finished.”

The familiar notes of Michelle Branch came pouring out of the headphones next, but instead of her lilting female voice, it was Harry's singing the words: " _Cause you're everywhere to me and when I close my eyes it's you I see. You're everything I know that makes me believe I'm not alone._ " Harry's voice cracked on the word alone, and Niall closed his eyes. He could listen to Harry sing for a really long time. And like the song version of Harry, when he closed his eyes, he only saw Harry's face looking back at him.

Harry's voice interjected between tracks. “Even when we're far from home, and stuck in this crazy country where I can't even toss back a pint with you and the boys between shows, you're still there, still smiling back at me the whole time.”

The second song started, and Niall recognized the beat as being from one of those 80s songs that they liked to do karaoke to sometimes for the hell of it. Again, instead of the voice he was expecting to hear, he heard Harry singing, " _I believe it's meant to be, darling. I watch when you are sleeping, you belong to me. Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming. Or is this burning an eternal flame?_ "

Harry spoke up. “We live in such close quarters to each other that seeing each other every day is an inevitable part of our lives, and yet, I -” his voice cracked slightly on the words, “I never get a chance to tell you how you make me feel. But they're there. Never doubt that.”

The third song on the mix started, and Niall peeked one eye open and looked over to where Harry was sitting across from him. His eyes were closed and his face was tilted up toward the ceiling, and his foot tapped rhythms across the floor. Cheeky bastard. He was half-tempted to rip out the headphones and give him a thing or two to think about. He shoved the headphones back in and let Harry's voice singing the words of a song he was somewhat unfamiliar with surround him: " _Seasons are changing and waves are crashing. And stars are falling all for us. Days grow longer and nights grow shorter. I can show you, I'll be the one_." The words washed over him as the waves in the song did, and Niall felt a smile growing as he listened more and more. This was kind of a really adorable way to make someone fall in love with you. Not that Harry even had to try, because Niall had been in deep for a long time, but – it was nice to see him make the effort.

Harry's voice cut through his thoughts. “No matter what, you'll always be my band mate and my brother in arms. But I want to show you that I can be the one to make your heart flutter, to be the inspiration for all of the love songs that we sing. No one else. Just me. One last song, and then a little surprise for you.”

He recognized the tune of the song vaguely, as if he had heard it a long time ago and just forgotten about it, but it wasn't one that he was overly familiar with. " _And all I can taste is this moment. And all I can breathe is your life. Cause sooner or later it's over. I just don't want to miss you tonight. And I don't want the world to see me. Cause I don't think that they'd understand. When everything's made to be broken. I just want you to know who I am_." Familiar or not, the words still packed a punch, right to the emotions.

Tears practically streamed down his face at the words and the message being conveyed. He wanted so badly to reach out and let Harry know that whatever message he was trying to send, it was being received loud and clear, but he restrained himself, knowing that Harry would soon talk and explain something about the song that wasn't immediately apparent. And sure enough, he did. “Niall,” Harry said, and his heart fluttered. How was Harry so self-assured – or perhaps a little bit psychic – about these things? That was a mystery for the ages. “Niall,” he repeated, and how could Harry do this to him? “You want the world to see you for who you really are. A kind-hearted, happy guy who would do anything for his mates, both in the band and not. But I know who you are beyond all that, and you know who I am beyond my surface, and we just 'get' each other, y'know, and I don't think the rest of the world does, at least not the way we do.”

And then he heard the first strains of a guitar playing. “And I brushed off my songwriting ability, which as you very well know is pure and utter shit, and wrote this for you,” Harry said, strumming along on the guitar. “ _Niall, you are my one in all, you are the one who stands before me, and you really do see, everything around you is in shades of gold, and never let your worth be undersold, because you are my one in all, my Niall_.” He continued warbling on about Niall's highest qualities, and the smile that had threatened to come earlier came spreading full force across his face. Damn him and his unnaturally talented singing voice.

After what seemed like far too short of a time, the song ended, and Harry came back on speaking. “I wish I could take you out to dinner and give you the romance that you deserve,” Harry said. “Bloody hell, I'd even buy you a dozen stinkin' roses if I thought that would show you how much you mean to me. But we don't live normal lives. Far from it. And you are the best part of this entire crazy, mixed-up experience, and I wouldn't take any of it back, not for a second. So,” he paused for a moment, and Niall inhaled sharply. “If you have anything to say, now that I've said my peace, now would be the time to say it.”

Niall got up out of his seat and closed the gap between him and Harry. He took out the headphones and tapped on Harry's arm. “Harry. Harry.”

“Yeah?” His voice was groggy, almost as if he had fallen asleep while he was waiting for Niall to listen to the iPod mix. Which Niall considered to be highly unlikely, considering he knew Harry, and he knew that Harry was probably waiting to pounce, like a panther on its prey, after he was done.

Niall leaned in and closed the last bit of the gap between them, kissing Harry – doing the thing that he had longed to do for so long that he didn't know what it would be like without this nagging feeling pressing at the back of his skull, demanding that he just kiss the guy already. Harry's lips parted under his touch, and Niall felt as if his heart grew a pair of wings. He tentatively poked his tongue through his lips and ran it along the course of Harry's lips, and Harry responded affirmatively, by pulling him even closer and running his hand along the space along his neck. His fingers grazed at his pulse point, and Niall wanted to throw his head back and let Harry just continue touching him with those hands, but the other three were still around, and the last thing he wanted to do was put them on display.

“I wasn't expecting that as an answer, but I'll take it,” Harry said, as they broke apart. Niall rested his forehead against Harry's and breathed him in, taking in the sight of him. “You want to room together at the hotel tonight?” As he remembered their tour schedule, they should be arriving in whatever city they were performing in next in a few hours. Maybe it was San Francisco? That sounded about right, yeah.

“Was it even a question?” Niall asked. “You said you wished you could take me out to dinner – maybe we can order room service when we get there. Make up for it a bit.”

“Naturally.” Harry dropped his hand to nudge against Niall's, coaxing his fingers open to greet his touch.

* * *

They settled into their hotel room – the other three were more than happy to take the other room, and Niall bounced back on the bed as Harry placed the room service order. “Two steaks, medium, and, oh, can you bring champagne?” At the voice on the other end, he let out a groan and said, “Fine. Non-alcoholic champagne, if you insist.”

He hung up the phone and turned to Niall. “Americans. Why they think that two nineteen and twenty year-olds can't drink a little champagne with their dinner is beyond me.”

Niall sighed. “How long until the food gets here?”

“They said about thirty minutes.”

“That's enough time for me to do this to you then,” Niall said, reaching over and hooking his leg around Harry's. “I can't believe you actually made me a mixtape of you singing.”

“I can't believe no one figured out why I was hiding away with my laptop and being secretive.”

“I think they just all thought that you were having Skype conversations with some lucky lady,” he said. “I didn't think that.”

“Then what did you think?”  


He pressed his finger to his mouth, and then touched the same finger to the base of Harry's throat. “I thought that you had some evil, diabolical master scheme in mind, perhaps involving world domination. You do have the Twitter followers to make it work.”

Harry laughed and pressed Niall against the bed, running his hands up and down his sides, tickling under his rib cage. “If I was going to take over the world using Twitter, you'd be the first to know. I think we'd have an in among the teenage girls, though. They'd probably let us in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah, we'd be kings of the world.”

“And you'd share my throne.”

Niall knew that what Harry said was true – he didn't tend to lie, especially not to him, and he eased into his touch. He soaked him in. “So, about that song you wrote for me – shoddy lyrics and all – it was probably the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me.” He hummed the melody under his breath and gave Harry a cheeky grin. “I wish I had a song written for you.”

“Don't worry about it,” Harry said. “I'll have to dedicate the next time I sing a love song to 'my all,' and leave everyone a-twittering – and a-Twittering – about who it is.”

“And I'll know that it's me,” Niall said, leaning up for a kiss. “And that's what counts, right?”

“Of course.” Harry kissed him back, over and over again, letting his lips linger against Niall's just a fraction of a second longer each time. He trailed his fingers along the hem of Niall's t-shirt, not daring to glide underneath the fabric, and they stayed like that, Niall moving his hand into the small of Harry's back and resting there, until they heard a knock at the door.

“Guess that's room service,” Niall said, laying back on the bed, as Harry reluctantly got up, disentangling himself from Niall's embrace.

Niall watched as Harry walked away. God, if he had just known that this was how everything was going to turn out – he would have confessed long before now. Saved him from having a semi-public meltdown, and made his heart happier all at the same time. Things would have been better.

And then Harry walked back to him, two plates with steaks and various vegetables in hand, with a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and two goblets tucked under his arm, and he banished such thoughts from his head, grinning as wide as the eye could see. “Looks delicious,” he said, smiling up at Harry as he set the plates down on the bed and sat back down.

“The steaks or me?”

“Can't the answer be both?” And he winked at him, and Harry laughed, and he knew that he had made the right decision after all.

- _fini_ -


End file.
